Is there no end to this government’s duel fixations of climate change and overseas aid? These two issues seem to of now converged into yet another wasteful financial commitment, this time with a scheme to help Africa reduces its carbon footprint, to the tune of £1billion.
The government continues to tell us that all the financial pain they are visiting upon us is necessary and we just have to ‘suck it up’ and get on with it – it’ll all be worth it in the end. Tens of thousands of public sector workers are loosing their jobs, including many of the service personnel who have been fighting and dying in wars our politicians are so keen to participate in (but not literally of course).
I wonder how many more services will be cut and jobs lost in order to fund what seems to be an ever growing list of vanity projects?
Category Archives: Everyday life
DIY SOS offers me a bizarre contrast
I watched DIY SOS on Thurs night. Nick Knowles and his team, along with dozens of local volunteers, were carrying out their biggest ever challenge, to modernise a rundown youth club in Norris Green, Liverpool.
Local people were shown saying how important the club was to their community and how it had saved many local kids from going off of the rails. Everybody who spoke was determined to see the club succeed and were committed to doing their bit both now and in the future.
We have a successful and popular youth club in Spalding, that was refurbished by the county council about 18 months ago. However, since then the opening hours of the club have been cut to only one day a week for less than three hours.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, a meeting I attended recently, along with a couple of other Spalding councillors and arranged by the county council, was asked for ideas on how to keep the club going beyond April next year. It seems more than a little ludicrous that the Nick Knowles team, along with dozens of volunteer tradesmen and women, spent nine days and an estimated 18000 man hours in Liverpool, creating something that Spalding may well be about to loose.
Immigration becoming yet another elephant in the room
Unashamedly lifted from the Conservative Home website, as I could not have put it any better myself.
Immigration comment
“The Coalition has declared its intention to get net immigration down from last year’s level of nearly 250,000 to the tens of thousands. But even that will not be good enough. In order to avoid the population reaching that 70 million, we have to get immigration down to 40,000 a year or less.” – Nicholas Soames and Frank Field in The Telegraph
“To put the matter brutally, neither David Cameron nor Theresa May has to live in Southall, Bradford or Tower Hamlets. They do not experience at first-hand the bitterness of traditional English people, who see their communities overtaken, their culture pushed aside, by people who force a path into Britain without the smallest desire, or even willingness, to embrace our ways or share our values.” – Max Hastings in the Daily Mail
“Ministers in the Home Office, from the Home Secretary downwards, should be under absolutely no illusion that failing to achieve the modest target set for them well before the next election will have a consequence: the public outcry they have faced these past few days will be as nothing to the wrath that unfolds.” – Express leader
What chance for the Big Society
Two issues I’m dealing with in the ward at present, offer a demonstration of the challenges involved in making David Cameron’s Big Society work on a practical level.
The first one is a fairly minor matter in the great scheme of things, but to the person affected it is a very real problem and one that is leading to some distress for the lady concerned. Her problem is with a neighbour who is neglecting his garden to the point that it is spoiling hers. Having spent good money getting her front garden made low maintenance, she now finds it blighted by wind blown weeds from the neglected garden next door.
Despite the best efforts of council officers to persuade the gentleman to do the right thing, he continues to do the bare minimum. This means that he doesn’t really fix the problem, but his neglect isn’t bad enough to justify any sort of legal action.
The second case is more serious, because of the activities of another bad neighbour. In this case, as well as having an impact on their neighbours, these people are allegedly carrying out certain illegal activities. Numerous comings and goings, often for less than 5 minutes at a time, suggest that these people are not coming around for a cup of tea. A large number of different vehicles, often taking up other residents’ parking spaces, also suggests that these are far from your normal neighbours. Some residents also report seeing scrap metal, farm equipment and even red diesel being handled at various times. It seems that our local police are ‘aware’ of these people, but have been unable to catch them in the act.
If we are struggling to deal with people who fail to be good neighbours and who spoil the quality of life of those around them, with our current but reducing resources, will the Big Society offer better or worse solutions?
A timely reminder of the purpose of the Johnson ‘Hospital’
A front page story in today’s Lincs Free press, has resurrected an interesting debate that took place when the new ‘hospital’ was first proposed.
From memory, the hospital trust did try to reduce the public expectation for their brand new facility, by referring to it as ‘a community hospital’. In the same way that a community centre cannot be compared with full blown, seven days a week entertainment venue, our community hospital has very limited functionality, when it comes to offering the full range of services.
As a centre for the various health professionals that operate in and around South Holland, it has created a much improved base. Likewise, the dedicated staff that were running numerous outpatient clinics in the various outdated, cramped and overcrowded buildings dotted around Spalding, now have a much improved and well deserved workplace. As do, of course, their patients.
Nobody can pretend that the minor injuries department is anything but that and those suffering more serious injury than a cut, twist or sprain, still have to accept that a trip to the Pilgrim Hospital in Boston is inevitable.
I sympathise with the lady who was left waiting 45 minutes for an ambulance to take her to Boston. However, she appears to have been let down by poor communication and, not for the first time, by the poor management of the hospital trust and the ambulance service, but not by our community hospital, that is doing exactly what it was designed for.
The unacceptable face of localism?
The story from Spain about a British couple dying in a flash flood has a nasty sting in its tail when you look at why it happened. Apparently, the local council ignored instructions from central government to improve the drainage in the area, that would of prevented this event. They were also ‘ordered’ not to allow any further public events in the area until the work was carried out.
Spain has a much greater level of local autonomy it would seem, with central government making lots of noise, but local government ignoring them when they choose. Is this what we can expect as localism takes hold in England?
Putting compensation culture in perspective
Extraordinary story, with pictures, in today’s newspaper of what happens when a culture of fear of getting sued exists. Apparently, a little girl in China was hit by a van that drove away leaving her lying injured in the street. Nothing too surprising there these days, it sadly happens all too often. The shocker here, is the fact that no fewer than 18 different people, some walking, some cycling, saw and then ignored the bleeding child to the extent that she was then run over and injured further by a lorry.
Is it possible that fear of being sued for helping somebody and making some sort of mistake whilst doing so, frightened off every one of these 18 people? Or is it a sign of a far more worrying character trait in this group of people, or maybe that region of China, that means they value another human being’s life so little? especially the life of a female child.
Steppingstone Bridge Spalding flooding
A bit more information for residents regarding the flooding problem the bridge suffers during periods of heavy rain. Below is a link to a letter received from LCC. As you will see from reading this, the issue of who does what on the bridge is far from straightforward. I will do my best to make progress on this before the freezing weather arrives again this year.
May says we’ve changed, Maude suggests not
Theresa May is making a valiant effort to shift the public’s view of the Tory Party, by being brave enough to go on the record, saying that the Party has changed and is no longer, ‘the nasty party’.
Unfortunately, Francis Maude seems hellbent on dispelling that view by laying in to the National Trust and by inference it’s many hundreds of thousands of supporters, including many Tories no doubt.
If you can’t bring yourself to read all of this pompous blurb, I’ve repeated the relevant section below.
‘………. Then, in the next breath, he is vowing to take on the unions, accusing the National Trust of peddling “bollocks” about planning reforms,……’
Steppingstone Bridge Spalding
Minor progress of sorts on the lighting issue, although sadly no actual light at the end of the tunnel, because it still doesn’t work! At least I now know that it is a waste of timing asking either Network Rail or LCC to fix it.
I received a letter from LCC today, giving me some information on the situation regarding the lack of a working light on the bridge. It would seem that, despite being the county council and actually having responsiblity for the footpath that crosses the railway line via this bridge, LCC can’t get any more sense out of Network Rail than the rest of us. It’s difficult to believe that a company that relies so heavily on public money for its survival, can be so arrogant when it comes to addressing the concerns of members of that public.
Below is a copy of the letter I received today along with one sent to John Hayes MP.
Bottom line is, if I can find £3,500, the county council is willing to install and maintain lighting on the bridge. I will now be seeking some support from other Spalding members at the next Spalding Town Forum. This support could be by tapping in to the ward budgets, or maybe by seeking some help from the Spalding Power Station community fund. Watch this space.
Roger Gambba-Jones 